The present invention disclosed herein relates to a metamaterial structure and a manufacturing method of the same, and more particularly, to a metamaterial structure having negative refraction and a manufacturing method of the same.
A metamaterial structure may include an artificial material in which artificial structures are periodically arranged instead of atoms and molecules. A metamaterial may have inner structures much greater than molecules. Therefore, the path in which an electromagnetic wave incident on the metamaterial structure progresses may be interpreted by macroscopic Maxwell equations. On the other hand, the inner structures of the metamaterial may have a size much smaller than an electromagnetic wave wavelength. Therefore, the metamaterial structure may include structures of shapes and sizes in which macroscopic material response characteristics are determined by means of a spectrum component of a near-field region.
The metamaterial is formed of a typical material such as a conductor or semiconductor, and its collective characteristics are changed by arranging it in extremely small repetitive patterns. Therefore, the metamaterial structure has a negative refractive index different from the progress of electromagnetic waves observed in natural materials having positive refractive indices. The metamaterial may reflect electromagnetic waves in a direction exactly opposite to a direction predicted by Snell's law. When the foregoing characteristics are used, a super lens may be manufactured to have a super high resolution of 1/7 or less of the wavelength of light for overcoming the diffraction limit of a typical optical lens.
The resolution of an imaging system for overcoming a wavelength limit, which is realized by using a metamaterial structure having a negative refractive index, is basically limited by the size of a unit cell constituting the metamaterial structure. There is therefore a great need to manufacture a negative refractive material having smaller unit cells in order to improve the resolution of an imaging system.